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When I got through, Duke Ellington stood up and started the applause.

A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington.

We were either listening to jazz or Robert Johnson, the old blues man, but not to our peers.

You know, I always when people ask me, like, what is my most favorite song, I quote Duke Ellington, when they would ask him, what's his favorite composition? And I say, I haven't written it yet. Because, you know, there are different songs for different occasions.

We work so hard on our craft, and once we get out of Duke Ellington, there are not going to be people looking for technique. I worry about that a lot.

If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.

To most jazz critics I was basically Kenny G.

I have tons of jazz records: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis. I could go on and on.

I think that it can be said of a lot of artists, and myself included, that we made the same record over and over from the beginning.

If I'm not a jazz player all the time, I've at least been cued in to what I do by jazz.